Bill Keough – You’ll Disappear, Just Like They All Do (75OrLess Records)

Veteran local music Bill Keough kicks off his second solo album, You’ll Disappear, Just Like They All Do, with a storm of foreboding uneasiness in “I Am the Lighthouse.” On “Gentle Smile,” Keough drops a shimmering slab of noise-pop guitar. “Drinking Myself into the Pavement” has an early ’90s grunge vibe with lyrics about, believe it not, drinking too much. “Maybe It’s You” has kind of a freewheeling ’80s indie guitar swing feel, with vocals functioning as a prayer-like outré. The closing title track is not just my favorite here, it is one of my favorite tunes for 2017. It reminds me of a Dinosaur Jr. circa Green Mind-era guitar collage. On You’ll Disappear, Just Like They All Do, Keough builds upon 2014’s The Slow Get Up (75OrLess Records) while dragging the listener deeper down into a fuzz tone squall.

Track Listing1 – I Am The Lighthouse2 – Beds3 – Gentle Smile4 – The Battle For Feelings5 – Things Have Been Going On6 – I’m Taking Off7 – Drink Myself Into The Pavement8 – Maybe It’s Just You9 – Audrey Meadows10 – If You Were Perfect, You’d Be Boring11 – You’ll Disappear, Just Like They All Do

Produced by Kraig Jordan at Plan of a Boy in Providence, RI
Mastered by Tom Buckland

A bastard child of PJ Harvey and Bob Mould; a darker, sketchier Frank Black with inside your head vocals and cross-hatched riffs; a heavy handed Mark Bolan out on the town drinking by himself… Bill Keough: a long time fixture in the RI music scene as both a promoter and musician, this is the follow up to his 2014 solo release “The Slow Get Up”.

Drone-y and kinda minimal post-punk with an almost Krautrocky tidiness to the beat. It’s pretty audacious to open up with a song as repetitive as “I Know Where You’ve Been,” but Keough actually cracks the mold halfway through for a ripping guitar solo and some snotty, corrosive vox. And that’s the trick, here. You think it’s one thing, and then it’s something else entirely. “Self Doubt” has the ’80s indie-roar of Husker Du, “3:32 AM” is pure Pixies, “Back to Punk Rock” has the ragged beat and space-acid guitar of Chrome, etc. Something new around every corner, anchored by Keough’s mopey, Black Planet sensibility. “Deliver the Goods” is the killer of the bunch, though. It sounds like somebody hit Marc Bolan in the head with a frying pan seconds before T Rex hit the stage but he played the gig anyway, blood dripping through his corkscrew hair. I didn’t expect much, given the cover – it’s a dude’s hand, that’s it – but I got plenty. This dude knows what’s up.

Also appearing, Extinction Machine (members of Dropdead, Landed, Olneyville Sound System and Lolita Black), SASQUATCH AND THE SICK-A-BILLYS, THE WORRIED (members of Mumbling Skulls and The Yuhboys), and Neutral Nation